Objective: To investigate the survivin expression in pancreatic carcinoma and its relation with prognosis of the patients. Methods: The survivin expression in the primary pancreatic cancer and their adjacent non-tumorous tissues resected from 55 patients were detected by immunohistochemical staining. The relations of survivin expression with the clinicopathologic factors and survival of the patients were analyzed. Results: The high survivin expression rate in the pancreatic cancer tissues was 65.5% (36/55), and all the adjacent non-tumorous pancreatic tissues presented low survivin expression. The 1-, 3- and 5-year overall survival rate for the entire group of patients was 50.9%, 30.9% and 1.8%, respectively. The survivin expression was not related to gender, age, or tumor location and size (all P>0.05), while it was significantly associated with degree of differentiation, lymph node metastasis and TNM stages (all P<0.05). Cox proportional hazards regression analysis identified that survivin expression along with degree of differentiation and lymph node metastasis were independent risk factors affecting prognosis of the patients (all P<0.05). Survival analysis demonstrated that the survival rate in group of patients with high survivin expression was significantly lower than that in group of patients with low survivin expression (P<0.05). Conclusion: The survivin expression is closely related to the prognosis of the pancreatic cancer patients, and those with high survivin face a poor prognosis.